Refrains and Revolutionary Love

Living gratefully today, I give thanks for Minnesota Public Radio and their news coverage. I also appreciate the hard work of jurors, lawyers, the judge, witnesses, court officials, and so many others in a very public trial. 

I was listening to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) on my way to work yesterday, on edge and concerned about the pending verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Wondering when the verdict would come and what it would be as I headed to my job in a Twin Cities suburb about 20 miles from where it all started last May. 

And I was listening to MPR as I drove home from work too, following a faculty meeting which included how to continue to support our students, as well as some discussion of security and the "what ifs" if there was violence and unrest in the metro. I arrived home just in time to sit with my husband and watch on TV as the verdicts were read by Judge Cahill and each juror was polled. 

A few hours later, I wrote this:

Refrains

Heard:     

Guilty

Guilty 

Guilty

Felt:       

Relief

Relief 

Relief

Thought:

Justice

Justice

Justice

Action:

Love

Love

Love

LV 4/20/21

The outcome of this trial offers hope for change and reforms that can aid in the dismantling of systemic racism. Such work takes time, effort, forgiveness, vulnerability, fairness, and solidarity. And it takes love. Like the revolutionary love that Valarie Kaur talks about in this video:

See no strangers. Tend the wounds. How to love ourselves. You will find much more to complement these ideas at the Revolutionary Love Project. I find that just considering "see no strangers" opens my heart up in new ways. Fellow humans, not strangers. Fellow humans, not competitors or enemies. The refrain of love is not fluff and fancy, it is from the heart and at the core of all we do. Onward!